Refined Metal

Refined Metal is one of the types of Resources in the game Oxygen Not Included. It was introduced in the Automation Upgrade. Every type of Metal Ore in game has a corresponding refined version of itself. The refined version of any Metal Ore has slightly better properties compared to its unrefined version.

Usage
Refined Metal is used in the construction of all Automation wires, gates and sensors; it is also used to make the highest tier wires, and many of the most advanced buildings.

Conductive Wire and Conductive Wire Bridges can only be built out of refined metals. They have a maximum capacity of 2 kW instead of the 1 kW maximum capacity of normal Wire. Additionally there is Heavi-Watt Conductive Wire and the Heavi-Watt Conductive Joint Plate which increases the max power to 50kW from the 20kW in the Heavi-Watt Wire and Heavi-Watt Joint Plate but they require refined metal and have a significantly smaller Decor penalty and 50 °C increased overheat temperature.

It is also used to build Metal Tiles which provide the largest Decor bonus of any tile (+15 in a 3 tile radius), Metal Blocks (+20 in a 8 tile radius) and may be used to build Tempshift Plates.

Production
Metal Ore can be refined using either the Rock Crusher or the Metal Refinery. The Rock Crusher is only 50% efficient at converting raw ore into refined metal (converting the other 50% of the raw ore into sand) whereas the Metal Refinery is 100% efficient. Alternatively, Smooth Hatches can eat any unrefined metal and convert it into its refined variant at 75% efficiency (it will not produce any side product like the granulator does).

Steel is the exception and needs a multitude of ingredients to produce, needing Lime, Refined Carbon and Iron to put inside the Metal Refinery.

Niobium is obtained from space missions. After one or two space missions, Niobium-Thermium cycle can be estabilished.